The Killing Season

by Mason Cross

  “Aw, who are we kidding, partner? It’s always personal.”

  That was when the explosion began. But instead of a blinding flash bang, it moved slowly. Silky tendrils of flame flowed lazily out to meet me, caressing my skin, burning me slowly . . .

  My eyes snapped open and the hellish vista was replaced by blue moonlight and Banner’s concerned face.

  “Jesus, are you okay?”

  The here and now ebbed back. Wardell, Chicago, Banner’s place. Banner’s bed. She was sitting up next to me, one arm coyly crossing her breasts.

  “What’s ‘Winterlong’?” she asked after giving me a moment to come to.

  I looked back at her.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” she explained. “Right before you started having what I’m guessing was a doozy of a nightmare.”

  I sighed and wiped a sheen of cold sweat from my brow. “It’s nothing,” I said. “It doesn’t exist. Never did.”

  She didn’t break eye contact. “You know him, don’t you? Wardell.”

  I stared her out for a moment, considered lying, then relented. “I don’t know him. I ran into him once. In Iraq. I could have stopped him.”

  “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

  “I did know. Not about all of this, but I knew. I knew if ever there was a man who needed killing, then it was him.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “You really think the target is the governor?”

  I shrugged. “Right now, it’s more of a best guess. I do know one thing though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Wardell will want us to be there. The people who have gotten closest to stopping him. The people who have hurt him.”

  “So we can see him beat us, right?”

  “That’s part of it, yeah.”

  “But not all?”

  I shook my head slowly. “He’ll want to make sure we’re there to know we’re beaten. And then he’ll want to kill us. Both of us.”

  67

  5:49 p.m.

  The roads were cut off for blocks ahead on the approach, some intentionally by police roadblocks, some merely as a by-product of the early-evening rush hour. We left our cab and walked. The gradual pace gave me time to take in the sheer scale of our destination as it loomed ahead out of the urban sprawl.

  The monolithic James R. Thompson Center was planted in the heart of the Loop, the commercial core of downtown Chicago. The JRTC, as it was known, occupied the entire city block bounded by Randolph, Lake, Clark, and LaSalle Streets. The all-glass exterior rose seventeen stories high, sloping upward from street level like some kind of round-edged pyra­mid. It was an utterly imposing building—dominat­ing its environment, radiating power. I could see why so many of the governors of the past quarter century had chosen to locate their offices here, rather than in the state capital of Springfield.

  A harassed campaign worker in short sleeves led us across the marble floor of the impressive atrium, already filling up for the evening’s event. The atrium acted as the focal point of the building, all seventeen floors of government offices layered around the open space beneath an immense glass-paneled ceiling. Although I was glad the governor’s rally would be taking place inside, and theoretically under more controllable conditions, I wondered about those open balconies on each floor. Seventeen floors, thousands of feet of open space. All of a sudden, I felt more exposed than any time I could remember.

  We rode up to the fifteenth floor in one of the glass elevators. The campaign worker led us to the governor’s office, knocked briskly on the door, opened it, and then shooed us in, not entering himself. My first thought on entering was that Governor Ed Randall looked like a pale shadow of his former self. Watching the press conference the other day, I had noticed he’d lost weight, but the difference was more dramatic away from the cameras.

  Randall had been a first-term governor at the time of Wardell’s original spree, and he’d appeared with some regularity in the news reports from that time. In common with others who had found brief national fame during that heated four-week span, he was a larger-than-life figure. He’d spoken in a deep baritone and had favored Armani suits and expensive hair dye, judging by the way that his convin­cingly jet-black hair belied his sixty years.

  Unlike John Hatcher, Randall had avoided grandstanding or issuing direct threats to the killer at press conferences, but had instead struck a balance between caution and re­assurance, facing up to the situation with quiet resolve rather than macho posturing.

  I found it impossible to reconcile these images of Randall with the slighter, smaller, grayer man who sat behind the desk in front of us. For a moment I wondered if there had been a mix-up, but then he opened his mouth to greet us and the low, mellifluous voice familiar from the news broadcasts set me straight.

  “Good evening, Agent Banner, Mr. Blake. I hear this is important.”

  Banner took his outstretched hand and shook it. I did likewise. The skin felt papery, the bones beneath fragile.

  “Life or death,” Banner confirmed as we sat down on the opposite side of the desk.

  Randall smiled. “Important enough to lie your ass off to as many people as it took to get you this meeting.”

  I looked at Banner. She opened her mouth to say one thing, changed her mind and then said simply: “Yes.”

  Randall nodded. “I called your boss, Walt Donaldson. Asked him what he knew about this agent who was so desperate to see me. He didn’t know a damn thing about it.”

  Banner swallowed. “Then why keep the meeting?”

  “I knew I was going to spend eighteen hours straight shaking hands and figured I’d be ready for a break right about now.”

  “Seriously?”

  Randall leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I’ve been hearing a lot about Caleb Wardell this week. A lot of people are fretting I’m going to be next on his list. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to that sounded like she knew what she was talking about.”

  I leaned forward. “Wardell’s coming back to Chicago. He may be here already. I think he’s planning one last hit.”

  “And, it being election day, you think it’s going to be me.”

  “Your prior involvement with the original case makes you the most likely high-profile target, sir,” I said. “And it’s possible he could have interpreted your comments at the press conference as a challenge.”

  Randall raised an eyebrow and seemed to slump back into his chair. He looked tired, beat. For his sake, I hoped this wasn’t the body language he employed for his television spots. “Maybe that makes me less likely. Have you considered that? This boy has a habit of throwing curveballs. Particu­larly lately.”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “Curveballs. Sometimes he hits an entirely random target; sometimes he goes for exactly the person we expected him to. He’s got the task force chasing their tails.”

  “But not you, as I understand it,” Randall said, his eyes flicking to Banner. I realized she’d been talking me up during the phone calls she’d made to secure this appointment.

  “Blake has been consistently ahead of the game,” she said. “If his advice had been followed from the beginning, I ­believe we would have Wardell back in custody.”

  “Is that true?” he said, the dark brown eyes swiveling back to me.

  “More or less.”

  Randall sighed and brought his elbows onto the desk, clasping his fingers. “So what is it you want me to do?”

  “We’d like you to consider scaling down your event tonight,” Banner said.

  Randall’s face stayed impassive, but there was a glint of amusement in his eye. “Agent Banner, please, it’s not an event. It’s a victory party.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “But can you celebrate in a less-open space? Close friends and family?”

  �
��Out of the question.”

  “You’re too exposed out there,” I said.

  “We have security on every floor. Extra security.”

  “You have thousands of feet of open balcony overlooking that atrium. Hundreds of people in the crowd. You’re going to be the only person standing in the center of a well-lit stage. They can’t guarantee your safety under those conditions, no matter what your security people are saying.”

  He considered this, made a reluctant concession: “My people have raised the idea of bulletproof glass at the podium.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Unless he has armor-piercing rounds.”

  Randall grumbled. “Why don’t you just load me into a giant bulletproof hamster ball, roll me on there?”

  “Or why don’t you just scale down the event?”

  Randall said nothing, looked to Banner for support and found none. I pressed the point. “If Wardell is gunning for you, and if you make it this easy for him, there’s nothing we can do.”

  Randall was quiet for a few moments, his mouth half open as he considered what he was going to say. When he finally spoke, it took us both by surprise.

  “Has either of you ever had cancer?”

  Banner and I exchanged a puzzled glance. It seemed like a non sequitur for the second before I realized why his appearance was so different from before.

  “No. Don’t answer that. I can tell you haven’t. You’re both too young, and more important, you look it. Anyway, I’d have to say I don’t recommend it. I was diagnosed the day after we caught that little bastard Wardell. Stomach cancer. I went through eighteen months of chemotherapy before I got the all clear. I underwent four major procedures. They removed several feet of my large intestine. The docs said I had about a fifty-fifty chance, back when they originally found it. I’d ignored the warning signs for a while, and so I’d let the tumor get to be the size of a tennis ball. I gave it a name. Do you want to know what I called my tumor?”

  “Wardell,” I said after a moment.

  “Very good, Blake. I called my tumor Caleb Wardell. I thought it was appropriate, with the timing and all. Because that’s what he is, you know. A cancer. An ugly little malignant mass of tissue that gets a foothold in a basically healthy place and just keeps on spreading. It’s been a few years since he was on the loose the first time, and every time I see a docu­mentary on the son of a bitch, I always take a look. Can’t help myself. They all focus on the bottom line: nineteen kills, nineteen shots. But the worst of it is that isn’t close to the sum of the damage he caused. The killings, the fear, it infected the whole damn city. People were afraid to go outside, to let their kids play, to fill their gas tanks. He made people in this city afraid, and we had to hold our hands up and tell them they were right to be afraid. That they were right to hide indoors. Right to think that we couldn’t do enough to protect them.” He punctuated each “right” by slamming his hand on the desk blotter. “And this time it’s even worse, because it’s not just one city. It’s America. People are scared out there, and the fear is spreading from state to state every time he makes another kill. He’s a cancer. We fought him into remission last time, but he’s come back more aggressively.

  “I did eighteen months of chemo. I went through four procedures. Maybe I was slow to getting around to facing it, but that’s how I dealt with cancer. I didn’t beat it by running away from it. And I won’t run away from this pathetic little psychopath.”

  A heavy silence filled the room like a tangible thing. I held Randall’s gaze for a long minute.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “When did it come back?”

  Randall leaned back in his chair and breathed out a long sigh. “Maybe it never really went away. I went for my six-month checkup in September. They told me it’s back and this time there’s too damn much to cut out of me.” He let out a low, dark laugh as a thought occurred to him. “Maybe I should have seen that as some kind of . . . omen.”

  Banner swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. How long do you have?”

  “Not long. Six months, a year at the outside. Long enough to get reelected, maybe even to do a little good, I hope.”

  “With all due respect,” Banner said, “that makes it even more important that we keep you safe tonight.”

  “Then do so, Agent Banner. Catch this killer. But I will not cancel the rally. I’m not afraid of death, and I’m sure as shit not afraid of Caleb Wardell.” He looked us both straight in the face in turn, holding our eyes and daring us to offer resistance. “All right?”

  Banner said nothing.

  “All right,” I said.

  “Excellent. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I have an election to win.”

  68

  6:17 p.m.

  I watched the red neon digits descending, feeling Banner’s glare burn into me. I watched from floors fifteen to eight before I relented.

  “What?”

  “Why did you let it go?”

  “Didn’t seem like we had much of an option, short of hitting him over the head and locking him in the trunk of your car.”

  “Wardell’s going to kill him.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “And how are you going to help it?”

  “I’m not convinced he’s the target.”

  Banner blinked in surprise. “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “If anything, I’m more convinced he is now,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “We’re working on the assumption somebody is using Wardell, that they’re hoping he takes out someone important. Like you said, Randall is the best target on paper for this day and this location. But after speaking to him, it seems even more likely. You heard him. He’s got nothing to lose. Politicians like that scare the crap out of vested interests.”

  “But his cancer isn’t public knowledge. Nobody knows about it.”

  “His doctors know. Maybe he’s told other people. Come on. You have to admit it. After meeting him in person, don’t you see Ed Randall as being more worthy of assassination?”

  “Banner, that is the both the strangest and most sincere compliment I’ve ever heard paid to a politician.”

  “Well, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I allowed. “But I’m starting to wonder if we’re wrong about what Wardell wants. And it’s something Randall said that’s got me wondering about it. Wardell doesn’t care about politics; he cares about only one thing: fear.”

  Banner looked up at the ceiling. “Then maybe Randall still fits. The man sounded like he’d declared war on fear.”

  And that was when the circuit clicked into place and the lights began to come on in my head. The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Banner started to step out and stopped when she saw I hadn’t moved.

  “What is it?”

  “Say that again.”

  “War on fear?”

  “That’s it,” I said. “Like War on Terror or War on Crime.”

  Banner was searching my face for clues, her brow furrowed. I made another few mental connections and knew what the next step had to be.

  “Banner, I need you to get me something. A list of dead FBI agents going back for the last five—no, ten years.”

  “Slow down, Blake. What—” she began, stopping as my cell phone beeped to indicate a text message received.

  I tapped on the animated envelope and read the message.

  Somebody’s been digging. Will call soon.

  “Who is it?” Banner asked.

  “A friend.”

  She glanced at the text, read it out loud. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  69

  6:20 p.m.

  Wardell sat with his back to the wall and closed his eyes, focusing on the murmur of the crowds arriving below. Although there were no windows, he kne
w that darkness had fallen outside. It was pitch black in this small space, just as it had been when he made his entry, nine hours before.

  It had been easy enough to gain access to his chosen vantage point, but then he hadn’t expected otherwise. There was an extractor vent in the ceiling. Through it, he could hear the soporific noise of the traffic. He wondered how many of those commuters out there were thinking of him right now. How many were sitting hunched down in their seats, one eye on the fuel gauge hoping they could make it to their destination without having to stop and leave the imagined shelter of their cars to fill up.

  Listening to the talk radio stations in the car that morning, Wardell had been mildly amused that he was expected here in Chicago this evening. Mike Whitford had never had the chance to file his story this time, of course, but somehow the media and the populace had managed to intuit the stage for this final act of the drama. Perhaps some eventualities were just inevitable—like a final face-off against Blake.

  Circumstances had clicked into place perfectly for that, and now Wardell knew how to make sure they were in the right place: both Blake and the FBI bitch. He’d make his initial kill; then he would take out Banner. After that, the location was perfect for one last dance.

  Wardell spun the cap off a bottle of water and took a sip. The Remington 700 was set up on its bipod, trained on the stage. He squinted through the scope and swept it over the kill zone once again.

  As he watched, two techs wandered across the stage, ticking off positions of cables and checking that everything conformed to safety regulations. Wardell closed his eyes and savored the anticipation. Not long now.

  He watched the crowd as it built, waiting until that one very special person took to the stage.

  Not long now.

  70

  6:42 p.m.

  It wouldn’t be long now. One way or another, Banner thought, it ends tonight.

  She took her eyes from the crowds milling around the atrium and raised them to the sky. Or, more accurately, to the vast glazed ceiling. The lights inside rendered the sky beyond a thick, tarlike black, dimming the clouds and the stars to nothing at all. She had caught herself doing this more and more often over the past few days—looking up.